“The real thing that sets us apart with our capabilities is the engineering talent to do those designs for the structural modifications that we do.”
At L3Harris, we are focused on modification, modernization and maintenance of multiple airframes for multiple customers. A great deal of that is certainly for our U.S. military, the different branches. So right now, the hangar that we were just in had several C-130 aircraft. Those are for a couple of different customers, but we’re doing maintenance efforts to get those returned to their end users. We also have significant U.S. Navy programs on-site for maintenance and modifications, U.S. Coast Guard programs and a leading-edge U.S. Air Force ISR program that we began delivering on about a year ago.
We are partnered with Yulista, the prime contractor, and NASA, leveraging our collective expertise to support the Boeing 777 aircraft’s induction and preparation. My engineering team has developed the design that is now going to be incorporated onto the aircraft, and through every step of that has been closely coordinated with NASA to make sure it meets their requirements. We are now underway in modifying that aircraft.
When that aircraft inducted, much of the maintenance work had been done ahead of it inducting. So most of our work is really focused on the modification effort, which to kind of put simply, is cutting holes and doing the structural reinforcement to the airframe so that the sensors that will be installed can be installed, and peer through the modified cutouts that we’re putting in the airframe. We will install all of the provisions, and then NASA would do the sensor installation. They actually have the sensors that will go onto the airframe.
We have roughly 875 employees onsite. As far as working this specific project between engineering and production, I would say it’s 50 to 60 is what we’ve typically had up to the point of the aircraft coming here, largely focused on the engineering team, which is what you didn’t see today. You see an aircraft, which is always impressive. But the real thing that sets us apart with our capabilities is the engineering talent to do those designs for the structural modifications that we do. So those teams are here on the campus, and now it’s being turned over, of course, to the talented aircraft technicians that will actually be modifying the airframe.
In December 2022, NASA bought a Boeing 777 aircraft from Japan Airlines for a reported cost of less than $30 million. A bargain, really, considering the price of a new 777 starts at around $330 million. NASA’s plane, which was built in 2003, is now in Waco, undergoing structural modifications at L3Harris Technologies. Once all work on the plane is complete, it will become NASA’s latest sky lab, replacing a DC-8 built in 1968 that was used by the agency from 1985 until it was retired on May 15, 2024.
Of the renovated 777, NASA said in a post on its website that “this unique flying laboratory will have truly global reach enabling data collection for NASA projects to include sensor development, satellite sensor calibration, data product validation, and field studies to better understand earth system processes to improve models and decision-making.”
NASA also said that the renovation in Waco will be completed in the second half of 2026 in preparation for its first science mission in 2027 and that date is a realistic goal, said Sean Ling, vice president and general manager overseeing L3Harris’ Waco facility.
Ling has been with L3Harris for 28 years, and is in his second stint in Waco. He graduated from Belton High School and has a degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M and an MBA from Texas A&M-Commerce.
